Stunted

Over the weekend, five of the Democratic party candidates for NYC Mayor spent the night in public housing in Harlem at the request of Al Sharpton. They included Christine Quinn, Bill DelBlasio, Anthony Weiner, Bill Thomspon, and John Liu.

Democratic candidates Christine Quinn, Anthony Weiner, Bill de Blasio, William Thompson Jr. and John Liu spend 12 hours with a host family at the Lincoln Center Houses, located on East 135th Street Between 5th Avenue and Lennox Avenue.

The candidates slept on sofas, air mattresses and sleeping bags in the apartments, some of which were without air conditioning on one of the hottest days of the year.

On Sunday, Christine Quinn discussed the conditions of the apartment she spent the night with the NY Post.

“The apartment I stayed in had a bathroom that was covered with black mold,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “It was the worst I’ve ever seen. When the city of New York is the landlord, this is unacceptable.”

Quinn was one of five Democratic candidates for mayor who accepted a challenge from the Rev. Al Sharpton to spend a night in a public-housing complex.

The candidates say they wanted to highlight condition in city-run public housing. About 3,100 residents live in the East Harlem project.

All emerged from the overnight stay with claims that all would fight to improve the conditions.

I'm sorry, but I can't believe any of them when they say that they would work to improve conditions.

You see, all of them have been in a position to not only understand the conditions, but to actually fix them.

Christine Quinn is the current Speaker of the New York City Council. As such, she can hold hearings, address budgetary concerns, and demand changes at the New York City Housing Authority which oversees public housing in the City.

Bill Thomspon and John Liu are the former and current City Comptroller, respectively. As such, both could investigate the Housing Authority for mismanagement of city resources, failures to enact reforms on spending, and demand changes in how the Housing Authority operates.

Then, there's Bill DelBlasio, who's the City Advocate. In that position, he's able to gather and collect complaint data about public housing and demand change.

Finally, there's former Congressman Anthony Weiner who could have addressed the matter while in Congress and sought more funding or reforms in the Housing Authority to get local politicians to demand improvements and change.

All five share the failed opportunities to fix the Housing Authority and poor housing conditions while they were in their current positions. Now that all five are seeking the mayorality, they are willing to say or do anything to get the votes of those living in the projects.

None are deserving.

All failed to do what needed to be done when they had the chance to act, but since votes are on the line, all are speaking out about the deplorable conditions. Anyone who spent any time in these projects would have known this - anyone who spoke or responded to constituent letters would have heard the horror stories.

What we had was a photo op that will be quickly forgotten once the votes are counted. That's not how it should be, but there it is.

Anthony Weiner Announces Run For NYC Mayor

Anthony Weiner, who was last seen sending inappropriate photos of himself to women and had to resign from Congress, thinks that enough time has passed and that he can and should be mayor of New York City.

He's released a video indicating his intentions, while addressing that he's made mistakes.



He's got nearly $5 million in a campaign warchest that he can use to inject himself into the middle of what has otherwise been a bland race. All that money can make people who want to forget about his indiscretions choose him over the other candidates in the race, which includes Christine Quinn (NYC City Council Speaker), Bill Thompson (former Comptroller who nearly beat Bloomberg last election), John Liu (current Comptroller), Bill de Blasio (Public Advocate), Sal Albanese (former Councilman) on the Democrat side, and Adolfo Carrion (former Bronx borough president), John Catsimatidis (owner of Gristedes supermarkets and real estate developer), Joe Lhota (former head of the MTA), and George McDonald (businessman).

But they shouldn't.

There's a good reason he had to quit Congress. He engaged in wholly inappropriate acts, and he showed poor character and even worse judgment. There's no reason to think that he's changed or that he wont show similarly poor judgment going forward?

The sad thing is that his wife, Huma, would make a far more compelling and extraordinary candidate than Anthony. Or most of the rest of the race.

At this point, the polling shows that Lhota leads the lackluster field on the Republican side, but things are more spread out in the Democratic race. While Christine Quinn leads all of the recent polling, her edge will be cut significantly by Weiner's entry. Behind Quinn, it's essentially a tossup between de Blasio, Liu, Thomspon and Weiner, with nearly 30% undecided.

It takes 40% to avoid a runoff, and unless we start seeing candidates drop out, it's going to be hard to avoid a runoff with this clown circus of candidates.

Massive Corruption Sweep Busts Politicians Trying To Rig Republican NYC Mayor's Race

Earlier this morning, law enforcement carried out  a massive corruption sweep in NY, with multiple arrests of local politicians.

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and city Councilman Dan Halloran were arrested this morning on charges they were plotting to rig this year’s mayoral election through fraud and bribes.

The pols allegedly formed an alliance built on cash payments and fraud to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — placed on the GOP mayoral ballot, sources said.

FBI agents arrested them both at their Queens homes shortly after 6 a.m.

“I have no idea,” Halloran, in handcuffs, told a Post reporter when asked if he knew why he was being arrested.

Others arrested includeBronx Republican Chairman Joseph Savino and Queens GOP Vice Chairman Vincent Tabone, and they are all being accused of trying to rig the mayoral election.

As alleged, Senator Malcolm Smith tried to bribe his way to a shot at Gracie Mansion - Smith drew up the game plan and Councilman Halloran essentially quarterbacked that drive by finding party chairmen who were wide open to receiving bribes. After the string of public corruption scandals that we have brought to light, many may rightly resign themselves to the sad truth that perhaps the most powerful special interest in politics is self-interest. We will continue pursuing and punishing every corrupt official we find, but the public corruption crisis in New York is more than a prosecutor's problem."

The 28-page complaint offers up a bunch of juicy details, but it boils down to money for access:

Council member Halloran was to receive $20,500 while Tabone and Savino received $40,000 in bribes with a promise of $40,000 more.

If Halloran's name sounds familiar, it's because he was a blowhard who alleged that Sanitation workers purposefully slowed down snow removal during the blizzard a few years back. Investigations found no evidence of any kind of slowdown. And the FBI had already been investigating Halloran when they sniffed out the potential bribery for ballot access plan.

Smith's name should sound familiar as well, as he was part of the breakaway Democrats in the State Senate who gave temporary control of the Senate to Republicans in a coup against Democratic leaders. Smith joined a group of independent Senators, earning himself and his staffers a pay raise in the process. Smith's defection also enabled Gov. Andrew Cuomo to maneuver and exploit the divisions in the Senate to advance his own agenda with less opposition - including on matters like the same sex marriage act and the NYS SAFE Act.

Not only does this scandal threaten the disrupt the political balance in the State Senate, but this scandal threatens to upturn the entire Republican campaign for NYC mayor, as key behind-the-scenes officials are involved and it's entirely possible that others could find themselves perp-walked. Tabone has been working for the campaign of John Catsimatidis.

These people are instrumental in getting the campaigns of multiple candidates off the ground and working support for candidates already in the running. It could potentially derail existing campaigns for those who are in the race and indirectly helps those Democrats who are already in the race, including Democrat City Council honcho Christine Quinn.

Expect Tabone and Savino to flip on Smith and Halloran who are the big fish in this particular scandal in exchange for less time behind bars.

Barron Dealing Nothing But Race Cards

Yesterday, the New York City Council voted on who would be the speaker for the Council. Christine Quinn won the reelection, but it was not without the detestable and despicable Charles Barron making a spectacle of himself in yet another attempt to make the issue about race. You see, Quinn is a white woman, while Barron is a black man. Barron brought in some of his lackeys to shout epitaphs and indignities on the proceedings.

The final vote was 48-1, with Barron voting for himself.

During a racially charged session, the City Council re-elected Christine Quinn as speaker Wednesday by a 48-to-1 vote over outspoken Councilman Charles Barron.

A small group of Barron supporters shouted "sell out" and "Uncle Tom" as every member present except Barron - who nominated himself without a second - unanimously voted to give Quinn another four-year term.

"We owe it to our children to stand up like men and women and say our time has come," said Barron, a former Black Panther and Brooklyn councilman since 2002.

The Council has a non-white majority for the first time, consisting of 27 members who are African-American, Latino or Asian and 24 who are white.

The Council clearly didn't want to rock the boat, and they clearly weren't going to support Barron's firebrand nonsense. Quinn has been as effective a speaker as the Council could hope for, and she was the first woman to hold the position (as well as first lesbian), so it's not like she was some kind of sellout. She's had to put up all manner of indignity, so this wasn't anything new.

Her politics were clearly acceptable to everyone in the chamber, except Barron.

Barron remains as he ever was - a despicable figure and demogogue who thinks only of himself and will name drop others in furtherance of his own agenda.

This Is Why Housing Will Remain Unaffordable In NYC

The City will buy unsold condos and coops to be resold as affordable housing.

The city is starting a program to buy vacant apartments to bolster its affordable-housing stock, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced in her annual State of the City speech yesterday.

The plan, which Mayor Bloomberg supports, would empower the city to buy unsold condos and co-ops and ensure they are resold as affordable units.

"Where developers have units they cannot sell, the city will negotiate the lowest possible price and make these homes affordable for middle-class families to rent or buy," Quinn said at City Council chambers.

Details will be rolled out in the coming months, according to Quinn and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Lieber.

Quinn vowed that the city would not end up being a landlord for homes in foreclosure, as it did in the 1970s.

Yes, you read that right. This goes against supply and demand - basic economics.

Allowing those units to remain on the market pushes the prices units down, making them more affordable. By purchasing these units and holding on to them, it provides a price support that distorts the market and ensures that prices remain higher than they should be had the market been allowed to adjust to the current economic conditions.

Affordable housing is not affordable when the government steps in and takes actions like this because it makes homeownership more expensive for everyone else. There are better ways to make sure that units get sold at affordable prices, and they all involve the private sector being allowed to build more units without price controls - rent stabilization or other government interference which has hampered the construction of residential real estate in the City for years.

The longer that units remain on the market, the more pressure there is on developers to lower the prices - and we already see that the price pressures are resulting in lower prices for units across the market (high end on down).

It also ignores the costs to the City to buy and hold on to these units; costs that the City can ill afford when it is cash strapped as it is.

This is a bad idea all the way around.

NYC City Council Speaker Under Investigation

We could play name that party, but this is New York City we're talking about. It could only be a Democrat, or so the naysayers who don't like playing name that party like to assert.

In any event, Christine Quinn has pretty much established a slush fund to spread taxpayer dollars to those who do her bidding.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's office hid millions of taxpayer dollars by allocating grants to phantom organizations as a way of holding the funds to dole out political favors later - bogus bookkeeping that is the subject of city and federal probes, The Post has learned.

Among the dozens of fabricated groups that were slated to receive funds were the "Immigration Improvement Project of New York" ($300,000), the "Coalition for a Strong Special Education" ($400,000) and the "American Association of Concerned Veterans" ($422,763).

The total amount set aside in 2007 and 2008 for the fake organizations - which are each listed by name in the city budget after being inserted at the council's request - was $4.7 million. In the two years, 30 phantom groups were listed, council aides confirmed.

The money, in effect, became a slush fund for the speaker and was later used at Quinn's discretion to reward groups that were loyal to her and to fund favored council members' pet projects, sources told The Post.

The scheme gave "the speaker a stash of cash with which to thank or pay off politically important allies or cooperative council members," a source said.

Quinn insisted in an interview yesterday with The Post that all of the taxpayer funds were ultimately used for legitimate purposes.

The never-before-exposed practice of hiding the funds dates to 1988, council aides said last night.

That last part is likely the result of the Board of Estimate being eliminated as a governing body in the City because it was deemed unconstitutional as it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution under the 14th Amendment (one person, one vote).

Slush funds are a common way for political leaders to remain in power; the same process happens in Albany as well - as it is institutionalized as member items that are provided to the Speaker's office and doled out in the course of the budget bills. How Quinn operated her funds is at question here. She set up bogus entities to hold the money until such time as it was needed.

This was an end run around City, State, and possibly federal law.

One has to wonder just how many millions of dollars was siphoned off into Quinn's shenanigans.